Over winter break I was browsing the internet, looking through different articles related to education and I discovered the attached article and study. I found it very interesting, especially because they are schools that a lot of us may be familiar with. I found it almost astonishing that these issues were so close to home and I had never even heard of this. We learned in social foundations that even though schools are integrated, you still see segregation within classrooms and even within schools. The fact that this exists at an even greater level (a whole metropolitan) in 2013 shocks me. I just wanted to share this with the class because it coincides with the issues that were discussed in human relations and it is really interesting to look at open enrollment in Minnesota. Enjoy 🙂
This comment is quite the opposite from Twin Cities schools, but my sister is a sixth grade teacher at Randolph Elementary School. This is a Blue Ribbon School in rural Minnesota (located near Northfield). Randolph has open enrollment for their students, but this is because they would not have the numbers if it was a closed district. There is almost no racial diversity at this school, but a definite economic diversity. Do you think that also having an open enrollment can benefit other areas of the school: academics, variety of student learners? That article is very interesting to think about the possibilities of school district decisions.
On a related note, I know that Eden Prairie has struggled to set up a system of deciding which students go to which elementary schools. The same sorts of issues are at stake–funding, whether it is fair to have the majority of ELLs in the same school without increasing that school’s resources, etc.